Los Angeles Chargers running back Austin Ekeler is feeling a familiar squeeze for NFL players at his position. The top touchdown scorer in the league for the past two years, Ekeler is a talented pass catcher and shifty rusher. But like so many other running backs before him, Ekeler is finding it hard to secure a contract that he feels reflects his talents. The trouble for Ekeler, and for running backs in general, is that the position is seen as unusually fungible; while there’s still a spectrum of ability in rushing the football, and some rare stars might be sufficiently superior to warrant big contracts, advanced stats have demonstrated that most running backs are replaceable. And this problem is especially pronounced for two reasons: one, because running backs have the shortest careers in the league, meaning they’re taking immense physical punishment and leaving the game early with little chance for financial security; and two, because the NFL rookie pay scale has distorted the incentives for the whole league.
The example of the Panthers is interesting, but so is the example of the Rams, who won a Super Bowl by giving rich contracts to several veteran players (Stafford, Von Miller, OBJ). What's fascinating there is that everyone thought the Rams were going all-in in 2018 because they had Jared Goff on that rookie payscale and could afford to break the piggy bank for veterans. It seems to me that in NFL media it's becoming common to argue that draft picks are overrated, and that most picks that aren't in the top 5 are NOT worth more than a proven veteran. In that sense it seems like the rookie pay scale could be a big part of what makes big veteran contracts possible: you get your rookie franchise QB, then you spend like crazy trying to build a team around him.
Running backs were hurt by metrics more than any other position. One, the vaulted “400” carries in one season stat permeated the league and allowed to teams to overuse a talented back and then discard him later knowing his best days were behind him. Two, it turned out that teams like the shanahan Broncos weren’t running back factories (Mike Anderson, Gary, etc…) but that a good offensive line and young running back equaled 1000 yards.
Lastly, the new generation of owners are pure capitalists. Say what you want about Jerry Jones but he abides by the dwindling nobless oblige of the NFL. He will pay people for their past work. New owners never will and will use every rule to their advantage explicitly disregarding loyalty and human beings.
I don't in general, subscribe to the same economic philosophies that Freddie does. But sports can bring out my inner pinko.
Somehow, sports discourse has shifted where the "enlightened" fan is concerned about a billionaire owner of a billion dollar entity's payroll budget more than getting the best players.
Growing up, if a team did something like the Panthers did, sports radio and newspaper columnists would be ripping their cheapo owner. I dare not even consider what Baltimore might look like running their franchise QB out of town. Yes, there was a significant amount of griping about millionaire athletes back then, but we wanted our teams to win.
Now we're so much smarter. We understand the salary cap implications of signing a player like Lamar Jackson. We know that star running backs are a bad deal. We make movies about a general manager who got his team to the playoffs (but never the World Series!) a few years in a row on a meager budget (in the Bay Area!). Bill Simmons does an NBA Bad Contract Draft on his podcast. Coaching and front office jobs that used to go to Black former athletes now go to white guys with stubble and laptops.
I just want to watch my favorite team win, and get the best possible players to do it.
There are probably a lot of things contributing to this mess, but I think the wage freeze imposed on the league is a big, obvious problem.
The other problem that is absolutely never talked about is the fact that everyone's salary in sports is public information. So, the athletes and their agents are no longer negotiating for a package that makes financial sense for the player, but now they have to go get the biggest deal in the league for their position. Otherwise, how can they say they are better than the other guy, if the other guy is getting paid more?
It's interesting to see you just openly admit to one of the major flaws of unions:
> Eventually, a deal was hammered out that dramatically restricted rookie salaries, with assurances that the money would be recouped by veteran players. That the union agreed to this shouldn’t be surprising; it’s very common for labor unions to reward incumbency over the interests of new entrants. (See, for example, last in/first out rules for layoffs in collectively-bargained contracts.) And so for over a decade rookies have received artificially-low contracts.
Have you written more on the topic? I would have expected you to be a straightforward pro-union type.
The thing about sports is that the numbers matter only so much, and the intangibles are very important. Two players might run the same and bench the same and might even get similar season numbers, but one can be enormously better than the other. Some players are tough and gritty, and others run up numbers against easy competition and then fail to deliver in the end. Running backs are clearly not fungible, even if the GMs want to think so. The great ones are very special, but which ones are going to be great ones? If a team has one that fits, pay the RB for the now, not gamble.
As to QBs, I think you put a finger on why there are so many young QBs starting in the league. The financial situation requires it.
Looks like it is time to rework the deal again and raise the salary cap and increase rookie salaries.
We also saw this with WRs last draft. The WR market was incredibly high (thanks Christian Kirk), and so six WRs were taken in the top 18 picks despite only four or so having first round grades.
Running backs get screwed by the rookie scale for sure. If they've been tagged a couple of times they are close to washed up before they even hit free-agency. After 28, on average, performance falls off a cliff.
One thing I think you're not mentioning is that in addition to having difficulty securing a second contract, running backs are also not being drafted highly. Saquon Barkley was drafted with the second pick and it's unlikely we'll se a back drafted that high ever again.
And there's a good reason for that: the #2 pick in the NFL last year (Aidan Hutchinson) had a year-one cap hit of $6.49 million. In the third year of his deal (the final year before which he can negotiate a second contract) he'll make $9.7 million. Christian McCaffrey--arguably the most valuable running back in the NFL when healthy--comes with a $12 million cap hit.
What this means is that if you draft a rookie high--and thus at least get that player paid well under the rookie salary scale--they will have to be close to the best back in football just for you to be even on his contract. The team's ability to extract surplus value from that contract if the back is anything less than transcendent is limited. So backs are now squeezed from both ends: it's not wise to pay them a second contract, but it's also not wise to draft them highly.
I'm not sure that there's an easy way out of this. Maybe just exempt running backs from the rookie wage scale?
I've been saying for some time that running backs ought to be able to sign shorter deals coming out of college. For example a 3 year deal makes much more sense given the short careers of runners, and since that 4th and 5th year money isn't guaranteed anyway, what does a back have to lose? The teams on the other hand would have to pony up the cash if a back runs like Saquon Barkley and his contract runs out at the age of 24.
But really, whatever happened to the bell-cow running back? Not just Emmitt Smith, you had Thurman Thomas, Priest Holmes, Curtis Martin, Adrian Peterson, Frank Gore, Jerome Bettis, Marshall Faulk, Ladanian Tomlinson, etc. etc. etc... Marcus Allen played for 15 years!
I seem to remember following these guys for year after year, knowing they'd eventually slow down or get that last knee injury, but still could string together 5-7 prime years. These days you're lucky to get 3 years, maybe 4. By the time you learn who's actually good they're out of the league (poster child - Todd Gurley). Now you have QBs who all play into their 40s but RBs who don't crack 26 in the league. And this is in a heavy passing era to boot.
Is it really just defenses being bigger and faster? More downs per game? More speed running plays and less power running plays? Where are the bell-cows?
"That the union agreed to this shouldn't be surprising"
It wasn't surprising to me since I read this article back when it was originally written (12 years ago, so it might be a little out of date): https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines See the section titled "Why some pilots earn $16,000 per year".
As a Panther fan, I thought this was a strange move to trade up for the #1, with a less-than-usual probability of finding a franchise QB in this class. But I agree with OP it looks like a value-play, taking the risk over signing LJ ( it's worth nothing the front office is not risk-averse, with a destroy-in-order-to-create mindset, moving CMC, DJM, and not wasting any more time on Mayfield and Darnold).
Honestly, thanks for writing this (and your previous NFL themed articles). I agree 100% with you that there needs to be something better in place for how rookie contracts are handled for those players taken in the draft (undrafted free agents are another story and not on-topic). While you didn't dispute the notion, you did mention that advanced stats seem to have convinced coaches and GMs that RBs of at least a certain skill/talent level are mostly interchangeable (one only need look at the Denver Broncos when Mike Shanahan was their coach for a case study) and that this really does suck for players at that position especially because, as you also correctly mentioned, of their shorter than average NFL careers and the beating a player at that particular position takes compared to almost any other. But the stats are right (and so was Shanahan) - if you have a good or great OL, a QB who can make things happen with his arm and his feet, and decent route running WRs who have decent hands, RBs really are pretty much interchangeable unless we're talking about Saquon Barkley (or Bijan Robinson starting next year). Ekeler is an interesting example and I'm in total agreement with you on him as well. The dude is a freak of nature physically, has great hands for an RB and is a workhorse, but in terms of "draftability" he had the misfortune of playing for a tiny Division 2 (or 3?) school in college, Western Colorado against what many might argue was substandard competition or at least not approaching elite, making him a difficult prospect to benchmark (or offering a convenient excuse for a GM to ascribe lower value to him in a cynical fashion). So again, I'm glad you've started that conversation - which you are also 100% correct about in that it's not discussed nearly enough (when at all).
As a Texas alum and longtime Longhorn fan, I still remember the debacle (for all parties involved really) of Ricky Williams' draft by Mike Ditka and the New Orleans Saints. So many bizarre elements to that story.
And before I continue, I highly recommend the following film on the NFL - it may be preaching to the choir for some, but I still found it a valuable compendium of reasons for why I don't spend nearly as much time anymore investing mental or temporal bandwidth in that ridiculously hypocritical, self-serving and greedy league. https://go.mediaed.org/behind-the-shield
That being out of the way, while I do agree with you on Lamar Jackson's talent and abilities, I still feel compelled to point out that if you're going to say he's "underperformed" over the past 2-3 seasons, more context is needed; context that would actually go against that narrative. Let's leave aside the COVID season - 2020. Too many convoluting things and spurious noise to make that a useful season in terms of player evaluation, especially for a QB like Lamar Jackson (who missed several games IIRC due to + COVID tests). As far as 2021 goes, they were dealing with some serious injuries on the OL, but Jackson still managed to have a good year, albeit not "consensus" or "unanimous" MVP level.
So let's talk 2022: In a past article I attempted to make the point that last season was also a bit of an outlier even in his so-far relatively short NFL career as a starter. For one thing he was injured and missed a lot more games than usual - and so did a couple of his OLmen, including Mark Andrews who happens to also be a premiere pass catching weapon at TE. Isaiah Likely was a key rookie TE pickup for them in the previous year's draft and he did a damn fine job given the circumstances. For another, the Ravens management gave him a serious handicap when they traded (or allowed to leave on FA) Hollywood Brown, his favorite WR target for the previous two seasons and his WR corps was injured for a good deal of the season. Rashod Bateman (only played 6 games and led the league in dropped passes IIRC) and Devin Duvernay (a serviceable, tough, quick but mis-utilized middle tier NFL WR out of my alma matter, Texas, got injured at some point and he was also a key component on ST being a good kick returner). But other than Demarcus Robinson, Jackson had few WR targets and the coaching staff didn't make the adjustments needed (more slants, etc. to play to the skill set of who they had available).
But his OL is, IMO, one of THE main reasons he had such a lackluster season (other than his own injury of course). Jackson was sacked like 24 or 26 times in 12 games (high for a QB with his mobility) and his backups were sacked another 12 times in games Lamar didn't play. So yeah, the OL looked good on paper by some metrics, but ultimately did not get the job done.
Anyway, I really didn't write this to argue with you again. As I said, I agree with your analysis on 90% of what you wrote about. I just think that Lamar Jackson's performances the past two seasons are mostly not his own fault and largely attributable to factors outside of his control. I'm not too keen on the Ravens coaching or management lately either; we'll see if they can pull it together next year even though I'll only be watching vicariously through fantasy stats.
That's what brings me back to the RB position. JK Dobbins started the season either on IR or injured and not playing. I think he and Gus Edwards missed a combined 8 games to start the season. Kenyan Drake stepped up to fill the void to a good degree, but he's a notch down from Dobbins and likely Edwards.
The example of the Panthers is interesting, but so is the example of the Rams, who won a Super Bowl by giving rich contracts to several veteran players (Stafford, Von Miller, OBJ). What's fascinating there is that everyone thought the Rams were going all-in in 2018 because they had Jared Goff on that rookie payscale and could afford to break the piggy bank for veterans. It seems to me that in NFL media it's becoming common to argue that draft picks are overrated, and that most picks that aren't in the top 5 are NOT worth more than a proven veteran. In that sense it seems like the rookie pay scale could be a big part of what makes big veteran contracts possible: you get your rookie franchise QB, then you spend like crazy trying to build a team around him.
Running backs were hurt by metrics more than any other position. One, the vaulted “400” carries in one season stat permeated the league and allowed to teams to overuse a talented back and then discard him later knowing his best days were behind him. Two, it turned out that teams like the shanahan Broncos weren’t running back factories (Mike Anderson, Gary, etc…) but that a good offensive line and young running back equaled 1000 yards.
Lastly, the new generation of owners are pure capitalists. Say what you want about Jerry Jones but he abides by the dwindling nobless oblige of the NFL. He will pay people for their past work. New owners never will and will use every rule to their advantage explicitly disregarding loyalty and human beings.
I don't in general, subscribe to the same economic philosophies that Freddie does. But sports can bring out my inner pinko.
Somehow, sports discourse has shifted where the "enlightened" fan is concerned about a billionaire owner of a billion dollar entity's payroll budget more than getting the best players.
Growing up, if a team did something like the Panthers did, sports radio and newspaper columnists would be ripping their cheapo owner. I dare not even consider what Baltimore might look like running their franchise QB out of town. Yes, there was a significant amount of griping about millionaire athletes back then, but we wanted our teams to win.
Now we're so much smarter. We understand the salary cap implications of signing a player like Lamar Jackson. We know that star running backs are a bad deal. We make movies about a general manager who got his team to the playoffs (but never the World Series!) a few years in a row on a meager budget (in the Bay Area!). Bill Simmons does an NBA Bad Contract Draft on his podcast. Coaching and front office jobs that used to go to Black former athletes now go to white guys with stubble and laptops.
I just want to watch my favorite team win, and get the best possible players to do it.
There are probably a lot of things contributing to this mess, but I think the wage freeze imposed on the league is a big, obvious problem.
The other problem that is absolutely never talked about is the fact that everyone's salary in sports is public information. So, the athletes and their agents are no longer negotiating for a package that makes financial sense for the player, but now they have to go get the biggest deal in the league for their position. Otherwise, how can they say they are better than the other guy, if the other guy is getting paid more?
It's interesting to see you just openly admit to one of the major flaws of unions:
> Eventually, a deal was hammered out that dramatically restricted rookie salaries, with assurances that the money would be recouped by veteran players. That the union agreed to this shouldn’t be surprising; it’s very common for labor unions to reward incumbency over the interests of new entrants. (See, for example, last in/first out rules for layoffs in collectively-bargained contracts.) And so for over a decade rookies have received artificially-low contracts.
Have you written more on the topic? I would have expected you to be a straightforward pro-union type.
The thing about sports is that the numbers matter only so much, and the intangibles are very important. Two players might run the same and bench the same and might even get similar season numbers, but one can be enormously better than the other. Some players are tough and gritty, and others run up numbers against easy competition and then fail to deliver in the end. Running backs are clearly not fungible, even if the GMs want to think so. The great ones are very special, but which ones are going to be great ones? If a team has one that fits, pay the RB for the now, not gamble.
As to QBs, I think you put a finger on why there are so many young QBs starting in the league. The financial situation requires it.
Looks like it is time to rework the deal again and raise the salary cap and increase rookie salaries.
We also saw this with WRs last draft. The WR market was incredibly high (thanks Christian Kirk), and so six WRs were taken in the top 18 picks despite only four or so having first round grades.
Running backs get screwed by the rookie scale for sure. If they've been tagged a couple of times they are close to washed up before they even hit free-agency. After 28, on average, performance falls off a cliff.
One thing I think you're not mentioning is that in addition to having difficulty securing a second contract, running backs are also not being drafted highly. Saquon Barkley was drafted with the second pick and it's unlikely we'll se a back drafted that high ever again.
And there's a good reason for that: the #2 pick in the NFL last year (Aidan Hutchinson) had a year-one cap hit of $6.49 million. In the third year of his deal (the final year before which he can negotiate a second contract) he'll make $9.7 million. Christian McCaffrey--arguably the most valuable running back in the NFL when healthy--comes with a $12 million cap hit.
What this means is that if you draft a rookie high--and thus at least get that player paid well under the rookie salary scale--they will have to be close to the best back in football just for you to be even on his contract. The team's ability to extract surplus value from that contract if the back is anything less than transcendent is limited. So backs are now squeezed from both ends: it's not wise to pay them a second contract, but it's also not wise to draft them highly.
I'm not sure that there's an easy way out of this. Maybe just exempt running backs from the rookie wage scale?
I've been saying for some time that running backs ought to be able to sign shorter deals coming out of college. For example a 3 year deal makes much more sense given the short careers of runners, and since that 4th and 5th year money isn't guaranteed anyway, what does a back have to lose? The teams on the other hand would have to pony up the cash if a back runs like Saquon Barkley and his contract runs out at the age of 24.
But really, whatever happened to the bell-cow running back? Not just Emmitt Smith, you had Thurman Thomas, Priest Holmes, Curtis Martin, Adrian Peterson, Frank Gore, Jerome Bettis, Marshall Faulk, Ladanian Tomlinson, etc. etc. etc... Marcus Allen played for 15 years!
I seem to remember following these guys for year after year, knowing they'd eventually slow down or get that last knee injury, but still could string together 5-7 prime years. These days you're lucky to get 3 years, maybe 4. By the time you learn who's actually good they're out of the league (poster child - Todd Gurley). Now you have QBs who all play into their 40s but RBs who don't crack 26 in the league. And this is in a heavy passing era to boot.
Is it really just defenses being bigger and faster? More downs per game? More speed running plays and less power running plays? Where are the bell-cows?
"That the union agreed to this shouldn't be surprising"
It wasn't surprising to me since I read this article back when it was originally written (12 years ago, so it might be a little out of date): https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines See the section titled "Why some pilots earn $16,000 per year".
As a Panther fan, I thought this was a strange move to trade up for the #1, with a less-than-usual probability of finding a franchise QB in this class. But I agree with OP it looks like a value-play, taking the risk over signing LJ ( it's worth nothing the front office is not risk-averse, with a destroy-in-order-to-create mindset, moving CMC, DJM, and not wasting any more time on Mayfield and Darnold).
Honestly, thanks for writing this (and your previous NFL themed articles). I agree 100% with you that there needs to be something better in place for how rookie contracts are handled for those players taken in the draft (undrafted free agents are another story and not on-topic). While you didn't dispute the notion, you did mention that advanced stats seem to have convinced coaches and GMs that RBs of at least a certain skill/talent level are mostly interchangeable (one only need look at the Denver Broncos when Mike Shanahan was their coach for a case study) and that this really does suck for players at that position especially because, as you also correctly mentioned, of their shorter than average NFL careers and the beating a player at that particular position takes compared to almost any other. But the stats are right (and so was Shanahan) - if you have a good or great OL, a QB who can make things happen with his arm and his feet, and decent route running WRs who have decent hands, RBs really are pretty much interchangeable unless we're talking about Saquon Barkley (or Bijan Robinson starting next year). Ekeler is an interesting example and I'm in total agreement with you on him as well. The dude is a freak of nature physically, has great hands for an RB and is a workhorse, but in terms of "draftability" he had the misfortune of playing for a tiny Division 2 (or 3?) school in college, Western Colorado against what many might argue was substandard competition or at least not approaching elite, making him a difficult prospect to benchmark (or offering a convenient excuse for a GM to ascribe lower value to him in a cynical fashion). So again, I'm glad you've started that conversation - which you are also 100% correct about in that it's not discussed nearly enough (when at all).
As a Texas alum and longtime Longhorn fan, I still remember the debacle (for all parties involved really) of Ricky Williams' draft by Mike Ditka and the New Orleans Saints. So many bizarre elements to that story.
And before I continue, I highly recommend the following film on the NFL - it may be preaching to the choir for some, but I still found it a valuable compendium of reasons for why I don't spend nearly as much time anymore investing mental or temporal bandwidth in that ridiculously hypocritical, self-serving and greedy league. https://go.mediaed.org/behind-the-shield
That being out of the way, while I do agree with you on Lamar Jackson's talent and abilities, I still feel compelled to point out that if you're going to say he's "underperformed" over the past 2-3 seasons, more context is needed; context that would actually go against that narrative. Let's leave aside the COVID season - 2020. Too many convoluting things and spurious noise to make that a useful season in terms of player evaluation, especially for a QB like Lamar Jackson (who missed several games IIRC due to + COVID tests). As far as 2021 goes, they were dealing with some serious injuries on the OL, but Jackson still managed to have a good year, albeit not "consensus" or "unanimous" MVP level.
So let's talk 2022: In a past article I attempted to make the point that last season was also a bit of an outlier even in his so-far relatively short NFL career as a starter. For one thing he was injured and missed a lot more games than usual - and so did a couple of his OLmen, including Mark Andrews who happens to also be a premiere pass catching weapon at TE. Isaiah Likely was a key rookie TE pickup for them in the previous year's draft and he did a damn fine job given the circumstances. For another, the Ravens management gave him a serious handicap when they traded (or allowed to leave on FA) Hollywood Brown, his favorite WR target for the previous two seasons and his WR corps was injured for a good deal of the season. Rashod Bateman (only played 6 games and led the league in dropped passes IIRC) and Devin Duvernay (a serviceable, tough, quick but mis-utilized middle tier NFL WR out of my alma matter, Texas, got injured at some point and he was also a key component on ST being a good kick returner). But other than Demarcus Robinson, Jackson had few WR targets and the coaching staff didn't make the adjustments needed (more slants, etc. to play to the skill set of who they had available).
But his OL is, IMO, one of THE main reasons he had such a lackluster season (other than his own injury of course). Jackson was sacked like 24 or 26 times in 12 games (high for a QB with his mobility) and his backups were sacked another 12 times in games Lamar didn't play. So yeah, the OL looked good on paper by some metrics, but ultimately did not get the job done.
https://ravenswire.usatoday.com/2023/02/01/ravens-2022-season-in-review-offensive-line/
Anyway, I really didn't write this to argue with you again. As I said, I agree with your analysis on 90% of what you wrote about. I just think that Lamar Jackson's performances the past two seasons are mostly not his own fault and largely attributable to factors outside of his control. I'm not too keen on the Ravens coaching or management lately either; we'll see if they can pull it together next year even though I'll only be watching vicariously through fantasy stats.
That's what brings me back to the RB position. JK Dobbins started the season either on IR or injured and not playing. I think he and Gus Edwards missed a combined 8 games to start the season. Kenyan Drake stepped up to fill the void to a good degree, but he's a notch down from Dobbins and likely Edwards.